There have been a series or articles in the media and stories on TV and radio this weekend that have tried to shed WWII in new light. Mostly, to me, it seems like Boomers are trying to understand the war and falling short.

Here’s an essay by Anne Applebaum on the Warsaw Uprising. Here’s a book review or Matthew Parkers book on the Battle of Monte Cassino. The Foreign Minister here may attribute this trend to “The Liberal Media” and maybe he’s right. I don’t know. I tend to see it as more generatioal. These two stories are from the Washington Post, a liberal media source, so take that for what it’s worth.

The trend goes like this. A Boomer writes an article on WWII Realizing “Hey, it wasn’t glorious. Rather, it was nasty, mean, cruel, and sometimes ambiguous.” This then leads to the conclusion “You want to glorify the war, but it wasn’t like that at all.”

Let me illuminate Boomers as to why we glorify the Greatest Generation, and why WWII stands tall in our minds and hearts. The task facing America was mean, nasty and all consuming. It also was a fight that needed to be fought. And the Greatest Generation comming from a cynical depressed America that still remembered WWI laid down everything they had to fight the fight. They went to war sacrificing dreams, hopes and lives for a greater cause. We all bask in the glory of their achievment daily through exercise of freedoms, liberties and the prosperity that America achieved following the war.

Reading Applebaums column is like watching a kid finally understand 1+1=2. “Oh my GOD” she realizes at the end

Perhaps there is no such thing as an entirely “good war” after all.

THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT! WWII vets knew that it would be horrible going in, but they went anyway because it was the right thing to do. People who stayed at home put aside their lives to contribute to the War effort. Yes, Ann, “In fact, for millions of people, World War II had no happy ending. It had no ending at all.” In the words of Henry Higgins, By Jove, I think She’s Got it!

WWII was a fight against horrible evil that killed tens of millions. And we sacrificed big time. It was a horrible time on the planet. And we overcame. Big Time. That’s the whole point. We don’t glorify it because it was a fun party. The GI’s didn’t head to Guadalcanal expecting a Luau. They went knowing they could die. And they may have been ambivalent about the ideology behind the whole thing, but the knew one thing. They knew they were on the right side.